These darn things are bigger than me. Exciting news!
So we've been to two trials since you last heard from me. The first of which was Belroi and
the second of which was in Fredricksburg.
Geeze Belroi seems so long ago let's see what I can remember. Our first day at Belroi (Saturaday) we started with Jumpers with weaves... What can I say about this run. It was perfect (two tries at the weaves but what can you do?). He was fast and followed all of my positional cues. A perfect run. Next was standard, which he did very well in. Our only hairy moment was a strangely placed front cross on my end because I ran out too far with him to make sure he made the broad jump. Instead of waiting for me to exsicute said front cross he decied to simple blind cross me (a big Greg Derrett's handling system no no) and take the A-frame. Luckily the A-frame was the obstacle we were suppose to be headed for. Gaius suddenly behind me frazzled me enough to say "Hey! you blind crossed me" to him while he was at the top of the A-frame. The judge heard me and laughed. She then shouted "He knows where he's going as we headed to the table. The only other mishap in standard was Gaius deciding to run and visit his daddy instead of doing weave poles.
I've noticed Gaius always seems to do something funny at the weave poles. Like that's where he decides to bark, or go visit Sean or wonder off. I think it's because he finds them stressful. They are still tricky from him, which means he'll probably get them wrong and have to do them again. Which means they are less fun than other obstacles. So he gets there and goes "Aww man, not weave poles. Why don't I find something more reinforcing to do" and that's where I get my barking fits. There is another time I get barking fits, but that is another story I'll talk about in a minute.
Video of Day 1 at Belroi (A double Q!)
Second Day at Belroi didn't go so well. In Standard he was a nut! Crazy fast but he didn't take any of the right obstacles. He was just crazy. Way to excited. I don't have video for this one for some reason. I'll go through the flip and try to find it again.... so expect an edit here with Gaius' manic crazy, there are bees in my brain run. The start of the jumpers run was much better. He was actually in control and taking the right things. Then we say the photographer and Gauis lost it. I don't think he's ever seen a camera that big. Well then we sort of had a barking meltdown. My main goal after that was just to get him back on track and finish the run happy and fast. Which he did, but by that point we'd missed an obstacle and made too many mistakes to Q.
Here's the first 25 seconds of his jumpers run monstrosity. The camera died mysteriously right when the run started to go south:
That leads us into Fredricksburg . Day one was Standard first out of the gate. It was a disaster Gaius' barking was so bad I had to pull him from the ring. Not because I was trying to teach him a lesson, just because we were going to get whistled off for taking to long. This totally bummed me out. And a spent my time until Jumpers wondering if Gauis and trialling was really something I wanted to keep doing if he was just going to bark. The Jumpers run still had barking but was much improved. It lifted my spirits enough to come back the next day and I'm sure lucky I did.
We have no footage of this day due to some wonky flip camera stuff. My poor dad. Though I'm kind of digging the mysterious lack of footage on all of our bad runs. All coincidence I assure you. No conspiracy here.
Saturday was awesome. There was still barking.... lord was there barking, but we managed to Q in both jumpers and standard. Which means Gauis got is Novice Agility Title! And he only has one more leg for his jumpers with weaves title!
Here is the Standard Run:
Again a weave pole meltdown. But I'm beginning to think that's more about weave poles and less about people. Other than that a lovely run. I did let him blow his dog walk contact. But there was a big GIANT guy with a hat on as a steward RIGHT next to the dog walk. And I figured if I kept him running he wouldn't notice. And it worked. So I was rewarded for bad behavior.
His Jumpers run saw another weave meltdown. See a pattern here? There was another meltdown after a jump. I have a theory there too. I think the other time he stresses then goes over threshold is when I make a handling error. I gave him a wonkey rear cross in the wrong place right before then and I think it threw him off. He also doesn't seem to be barking at anyone there.... he's just..... barking. But with only one refusal we still got our Q! See for yourself:
When I got off the course I wasn't sure if I had Qed. I asked the AKC representative and he said he had. Then he said "And he gets extra points for cursing at you."
I said "He's not cursing at me, he's cursing at the whole world"
The judge shock his head and replied firmly, "No, he's cursing at you."
And maybe he is. Maybe what he's saying is 'mom, we haven't practiced weaves enough and you make mistakes sometimes. When I get to weaves or you mess up, screw agility. I'm going to find another way to entertain myself. Like barking at that woman in the freaky sun hat.'
So new homework, weave poles and no more making mistakes (shesh!)
I don't really get the whole ribbon thing... but if you like them mom... whatever.
I've noticed Gaius always seems to do something funny at the weave poles. Like that's where he decides to bark, or go visit Sean or wonder off. I think it's because he finds them stressful. They are still tricky from him, which means he'll probably get them wrong and have to do them again. Which means they are less fun than other obstacles. So he gets there and goes "Aww man, not weave poles. Why don't I find something more reinforcing to do" and that's where I get my barking fits. There is another time I get barking fits, but that is another story I'll talk about in a minute.
Video of Day 1 at Belroi (A double Q!)
Belroi Agility Day 1 from Sean Van Damme on Vimeo.
Second Day at Belroi didn't go so well. In Standard he was a nut! Crazy fast but he didn't take any of the right obstacles. He was just crazy. Way to excited. I don't have video for this one for some reason. I'll go through the flip and try to find it again.... so expect an edit here with Gaius' manic crazy, there are bees in my brain run. The start of the jumpers run was much better. He was actually in control and taking the right things. Then we say the photographer and Gauis lost it. I don't think he's ever seen a camera that big. Well then we sort of had a barking meltdown. My main goal after that was just to get him back on track and finish the run happy and fast. Which he did, but by that point we'd missed an obstacle and made too many mistakes to Q.
Here's the first 25 seconds of his jumpers run monstrosity. The camera died mysteriously right when the run started to go south:
That leads us into Fredricksburg . Day one was Standard first out of the gate. It was a disaster Gaius' barking was so bad I had to pull him from the ring. Not because I was trying to teach him a lesson, just because we were going to get whistled off for taking to long. This totally bummed me out. And a spent my time until Jumpers wondering if Gauis and trialling was really something I wanted to keep doing if he was just going to bark. The Jumpers run still had barking but was much improved. It lifted my spirits enough to come back the next day and I'm sure lucky I did.
We have no footage of this day due to some wonky flip camera stuff. My poor dad. Though I'm kind of digging the mysterious lack of footage on all of our bad runs. All coincidence I assure you. No conspiracy here.
Saturday was awesome. There was still barking.... lord was there barking, but we managed to Q in both jumpers and standard. Which means Gauis got is Novice Agility Title! And he only has one more leg for his jumpers with weaves title!
Here is the Standard Run:
Again a weave pole meltdown. But I'm beginning to think that's more about weave poles and less about people. Other than that a lovely run. I did let him blow his dog walk contact. But there was a big GIANT guy with a hat on as a steward RIGHT next to the dog walk. And I figured if I kept him running he wouldn't notice. And it worked. So I was rewarded for bad behavior.
His Jumpers run saw another weave meltdown. See a pattern here? There was another meltdown after a jump. I have a theory there too. I think the other time he stresses then goes over threshold is when I make a handling error. I gave him a wonkey rear cross in the wrong place right before then and I think it threw him off. He also doesn't seem to be barking at anyone there.... he's just..... barking. But with only one refusal we still got our Q! See for yourself:
When I got off the course I wasn't sure if I had Qed. I asked the AKC representative and he said he had. Then he said "And he gets extra points for cursing at you."
I said "He's not cursing at me, he's cursing at the whole world"
The judge shock his head and replied firmly, "No, he's cursing at you."
And maybe he is. Maybe what he's saying is 'mom, we haven't practiced weaves enough and you make mistakes sometimes. When I get to weaves or you mess up, screw agility. I'm going to find another way to entertain myself. Like barking at that woman in the freaky sun hat.'
So new homework, weave poles and no more making mistakes (shesh!)
I don't really get the whole ribbon thing... but if you like them mom... whatever. 
4 comments:
Duh, meant to delete my comment not yours, my bad. I'm not good at this whole technical side of the blog. Sorry about that.
I was editing my comment to remove typos:
:) everyone one says he hovers over the jumps. He defiantly gets lift but not much distance. Let's just say being out of Novice is nice because we'll never have to see that gosh darn broad jump again.
Hi there,
Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day! What a cute and spunky little daschund you have -- he looks like he's proudly prancing his way through his agility runs :-) Looking forward to following your blog!
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